


and if it's quite alright, i need you, baby

by misszuipperips



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Background Pike/Scanlan, Background Relationships, Background Zahra/Kashaw, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Minor Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia, Post-Campaign, Post-Finale, Requited Love, Romantic Fluff, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 03:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13022745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misszuipperips/pseuds/misszuipperips
Summary: Keyleth and Lillith meet again at a ball, and Lillith feels an old crush rise up once more. What starts as friendship quickly turns into something more as Lillith tries to deal with falling more and more in love with her friend.(it's just indulgent fluff. a timeline of lillith/keyleth post-finale.)





	and if it's quite alright, i need you, baby

**Author's Note:**

> fic title comes from "can't take my eyes off you" by frankie valli and the four seasons, which i listened to a Lot while writing this

When Lillith and Keyleth met again, the world had been saved for years and Vox Machina had settled down (for the most part). Lillith was a Baronessa and Keyleth the Voice of the Tempest, and so they met at a high society ball in Wildemount as a gesture of goodwill by King Dwendal for Keyleth’s travelling through the area. It was hard for them not to see each other in the crowd—Lillith always stood out with her tiefling heritage and while Keyleth was the focus of the party, it would’ve been hard to ignore her antlers.

Lillith slowly made her way through the crowd of nobility and socialites towards Keyleth, like the planets gravitating the sun as she orbited into a gentle collision course with the half-elf.

“Keyleth!” she cried out in greeting, waving at her excitedly over the shoulders of some (semi-scandalised) nobles.

“Lillith!” Keyleth cried back, carefully pushing through the crowd until she could grab the tiefling by the shoulders and beam at her. “How are you? It’s been so long!”

The crowd parted around them as they reunited, and Lillith managed to drag Keyleth onto the dancefloor so that they could waltz together. It was met with some resistance from the druid at first, but Lillith managed to charm her with the promise of ‘just one dance’. One dance quickly turned into many, and it was only when a raven swooped in to rest on Keyleth’s shoulders that their easy conversation stuttered to a halt and they remembered the outside world.

“New familiar?” Lillith asked, eyeing the raven with mild trepidation. “It’s smaller than the bear that your friend kept.”

Keyleth shrugged, looking away awkwardly.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

The music started back up as it changed to a new song, but Keyleth halted and looked around them at the watchful crowd. There was sure to be gossip—she wasn’t sure how long they’d been dancing together, but it seemed to have raised some brows and set some mouths a-chatter.

“Shall we meet for tea when you are next free?” Lillith asked daringly, fluttering her lashes at Keyleth almost comically as she looked up at the half-elf.

“O-oh,” Keyleth stuttered, and then pretended to swoon as an attempt to mask her very real surprise. “Why, I thought you’d never ask!”

Lillith laughed at the druid’s dramatics and clasped her hands a little tighter, reluctant for their dance to end as the band faded out.

“Well,” she said, “I simply couldn’t let you slip away one more time. We have much to catch up on, no?”

“It has been quite some time since we met,” Keyleth offered, pulling her hands back gently.

“Forgive me—I’m dominating all your time at the party. We can meet tomorrow around noon if you have not celebrated too hard,” the tiefling said with a quick grin, curtseying dramatically and mingling her way into the crowd before Keyleth could even reply.

 

The next day, when they met up for tea, they both looked somewhat rumpled from the previous night’s celebrations. The king had served free alcohol, and they were hardly ones to refuse such a tempting offer. Lillith tugged Keyleth down slightly and swiftly pressed a kiss to her cheeks, all but dragging the leader of the Ashari through to a more secluded table at the café they’d met out the front of.

“I thought you and Percy had… a thing,” Keyleth admitted once they’d been served tea with some hesitance and an attempt at delicacy.

Lillith laughed and Keyleth flushed, embarrassed.

“We never had a ‘thing’, darling. I admit, I was much more interested in spending my time with you when we met,” Lillith replied easily, resting her chin on her hands and giving the druid a wink and a smile.

Keyleth smiled back, stirring her tea and dodging eye contact so she wouldn’t flush further.

“I didn’t realise,” she said, letting out an awkward laugh. “I thought you were just being friendly.”

Lillith placed a hand on the table, careful (at least in her mind) to place it so that it didn’t encroach on Keyleth’s half of the table but that it was close enough to that invisible border that she could leave it open for the druid to place her hand on top of Lillith’s. She took a sip of her tea with her other hand, and her smile became softer (fonder).

“I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable, Keyleth. My intentions are friendly—I wish to catch up on all that has happened since our encounter with the Briarwoods. Surely you have many grand adventures to regale me with,” Lillith told her kindly, trying to clear the air.

“You don’t—you don’t have to worry,” Keyleth started, placing her hand quickly on the other woman’s hand to reassure her. “Gods… there’s so much to tell you.”

“If we run out of time today, I suppose you’ll just have to come visit me at Palac Lusterka more often, so you can continue your stories,” Lillith replied impishly, confidence restored by Keyleth’s words. “I would hate to be cut short from hearing what wild foes you vanquished and how many damsels you rescued.”

“Not as many damsels need rescuing as one might think, but I suppose you already knew that.”

Keyleth felt relaxed, sitting here at this table, looking over at Lillith’s grinning face as she began from their last meeting on the wild mishaps and mayhem Vox Machina had found themselves in. Being the Voice of the Tempest made her anxious sometimes still; the weight of her responsibility and leadership was one that weighed heavy on her shoulders some days. She would look at herself and wonder when the others would point out how she was an imposter, unfit to lead, but she knew these thoughts were ones she had to overcome. Her journeying with her friends had proven her worth as an adventurer and her capability as a leader of her people—and watching Lillith’s impressed (and somewhat amused) face as she recounted their hijinks reassured her.

 

As expected, there was too much to tell over a few pots of tea. When they realised the time, Keyleth had laughed in embarrassment (her voice slightly hoarse and her tea stone cold) and Lillith had flushed as she looked at the numerous empty pots at their table.

“You’ll simply have to visit me,” Lillith said as they stood up from the table to pay for their drinks. “I can hardly bear the anticipation of having to wait on such a cliffhanger.”

“Well, you know I made it!” Keyleth laughed, gesturing towards herself.

“Yes, but the _drama_! The _tension_!” Lillith cried dramatically, throwing up a hand to her forehead. “Oh, how it pains me to know I’ll have to wait!”

Keyleth giggled furiously, hands over her mouth to try and muffle her reaction. Lillith broke into a wide grin, fighting back the soft feeling that rose up at the sight of Keyleth’s laughing fit. She’d told Keyleth she only had friendly intentions, but it didn’t stop the old crush she’d nursed for weeks after she’d met Keyleth for the first time from swelling back up once more.

“I’ll keep in touch, Lillith. We can talk via letters if we cannot visit each other—and besides, you’re always welcome to come and visit me and the other Ashari.”

“It was great to see you again, Keyleth,” the tiefling said, scuffing her hooves against the floor nervously. “I mean it—I have heard of your adventures through my cousin’s gossiping, but I wish I could’ve helped more when it counted. If I’d known—”

“If you’d known, you’d have been in even greater danger,” Keyleth interjected, cutting her off gently. She grabbed Lillith by the hands, tugging her ever-so-slightly closer. “Enough of our friends nearly died. It might be selfish of me, but I’m glad you weren’t there to face down Vecna. I’ve… I’ve lost enough from that fight.”

Lillith was silent, absorbing that information, but she didn’t pry. While Lillith had adventures of her own under her belt and a wealth of power from her studies as a wizard, she knew that the lives that Vox Machina led had been—would always be—different from the lives of any other adventuring group. They’d saved the world while Lillith had dealt with family squabbling.

“In any case,” she finally said, curling her fingers around Keyleth’s hands, “I’d love to see you again.”

 

They talk, over letters and magic objects of their devising, about their day-to-day lives and trivial matters interspersed with what hijinks Zahra, Kashaw, and Lillith got up to in the Slayer’s Take and the unrivalled soap opera that was the tale of Vox Machina. Lillith had penned many flowery love letters, spritzed with perfume and sealed with a kiss before she chickened out and threw it away, instead writing a version where she talked about how she still couldn’t believe Zahra and Kashaw had actually ended up together.

She’d consulted her cousin about it once, through a charmed mirror that they used to chat, only to be laughed at by the other tiefling until Kashaw came in to investigate the commotion and laughed at her as well when Lillith informed him of the situation. By the time they were done drying their tears, Lillith had stuck up her nose and told them that she didn’t need their help and that she could woo Keyleth without them. She hung up promptly, and then immediately called them once again to instruct them _not_ to tell Vox Machina about her crush.

 

After a few months of occasional visits from Keyleth and near-daily talks through charmed mirrors and letters, Lillith journeyed out to Zephrah to visit Keyleth. She packed both practical clothing for the journey itself and her finest and most extravagant dress for when she arrived. Though she realised the foolishness and stupidity of bringing her most expensive dress to a mountain village known for its strong winds, but the daydreams she had of swooning into Keyleth’s arms and impressing her with the beauty of her appearance made her impulsively pack it before she headed off. She’d left with barely any warning, telling Zahra to keep an eye on her land (much to the other tiefling’s annoyance until Lillith explained to her cousin she was trying to woo Keyleth—then Zahra laughed and agreed to help). The journey was uneventful due to Lillith’s illusion magic—though Keyleth likely would’ve gone out of her way to help all the struggling adventurers that were trekking across the countryside, Lillith merely urged her horse to ride faster and made them invisible to those they rode past.

When she eventually made it to Zephrah, she paused to quickly change into her fancy dress, glimmering and glittering (with a suitable amount of swishing) as she led her horse forward towards where Keyleth had told her the village was located. An earth elemental rose up from the ground in front of her, and Lillith instinctively dropped into a fighting pose while her horse panicked—but she relaxed when the earth elemental shifted into Keyleth, who grinned and ran forward to hug her. Lillith dropped her horse’s reins as the archdruid swung her around, laughing as the adrenaline spike left as quickly as it came.

“You scared me!” she said when Keyleth finally put her down and they’d managed to find her horse.

She brushed down her dress, remembering her goal in wearing it and posing slightly when Keyleth turned to look at her from where she was calming Lillith’s steed.

“Well, we don’t normally get visitors. I didn’t know it was you—as the headmaster here, I have to defend my people from outside threats,” Keyleth replied, grabbing Lillith’s hand with the hand not holding the horse’s reins and leading her up towards the village. “But I should’ve known it’d be you—not many people would wear such a lovely outfit while hiking up these mountains!”

Lillith blushed appropriately, fluttering her lashes like she was still that demure and mousy-looking human she’d been disguised as when she had met the group of adventurers her cousin had told her about.

“Why, this old thing?” Lillith said, as though she hadn’t had an internal breakdown when her dress had gotten caught on a rock 5 minutes prior. “This was just something I threw on for travelling!”

Keyleth looked at her with amusement, but didn’t call out Lillith’s attempts at playing it off. She just shook her head and smothered a laugh at the theatrics the tiefling went through to show up looking as impressive as she could.

“It’s very pretty,” she told Lillith placatingly. “You might be… somewhat overdressed here, but since it _is_ just your travel clothes…”

She shrugged and kept walking. They reached the village quickly, and were greeted with inquisitive stares from those around. Tieflings lived among the Air Ashari, so the stares weren’t because of Lillith’s distinctive and different appearance, but rather because of how she was dressed and how their leader was holding her hand. There would be titters of gossip spreading around tomorrow about this, but Keyleth didn’t let go as she led Lillith through the village to her home. They realised they both didn’t know what to do with Lillith’s horse, so Keyleth transformed it into a bird so that it could flutter about and stay out of the way.

 

The first day that Lillith visited, most of the day was spent with Keyleth excitedly giving a tour of everything there was to do and see. Lillith spent that night thinking about how Keyleth had grabbed her hand to drag her about the village, and she buried her face in her hands at how excited and weak at the knees it had made her. She didn’t want to be too obvious, but the encouragement from Zahra and Kashaw had been to be as obvious as possible. It was hard, when she wasn’t sure if Keyleth wanted to be more than friends. If she didn’t, Lillith would understand—whatever the reasoning, Lillith would accept the limits of their relationship and wait for her feelings to pass.

That didn’t stop her from memorising the way that Keyleth looked in the morning light when they ate breakfast together the next day; the way she looked so soft and ethereal in the gentle sunshine that spilled in through the windows. It was almost too much for Lillith’s poor heart, and it left her stuttering and forgetting what she wanted to eat for breakfast when Keyleth asked—the druid just laughed and asked if she was still asleep.

(The urge to kiss her slow and soft was hard to resist, but Lillith just held her spoon tightly and looked at her oats until the temptation passed and she could look at Keyleth without trying anything so impulsive and rash.)

“What should we do now?” Lillith finally asked, raising an eyebrow and hoping to look suaver and less like a confused bird with her messy bedhead.

“I thought I’d show you my gardens and you could help me with tending to the plants!” Keyleth answered with some excitement, beaming with crumbs around her mouth from her toast.

God, Lillith had never felt more in love than she had right now.

“I’d love to.”

 

Tending to the gardens took quite a few hours to do, although Lillith was sure that Keyleth could easily take care of it all with a snap of her fingers and some magic. It was… well, not necessarily relaxing, but it was _nice_ to be able to be out in the sunshine and the fresh air without having to worry about deadly monsters or nagging duties to attend to. Once they were done, Keyleth made a flourishing hand motion and made a flower bloom so she could pluck it. She came over to sit next to Lillith under a nearby tree and gently tucked the flower behind Lillith’s ear so that it would peek through underneath her horns.

“There’s a little thank you from me to you,” she said easily, leaning over to bump shoulders with the other woman. “Makes you look even prettier than you did already.”

Lillith was beginning to suspect that Keyleth might want to be more than just friends with compliments like that. She grinned wide, closing her eyes and tipping her head to rest on Keyleth’s shoulder. She worried, briefly, that she might accidentally jab Keyleth with her horns, but with some careful adjustment they were kept out of danger.

“I’d offer you a flower as well, but you already have a dozen on your head,” Lillith replied with good humour.

“It’s called fashion, Lillith. Do try to look it up,” Keyleth said with fake haughtiness, sniffing dramatically as she wrapped an arm around Lillith’s shoulders.

They both burst into laughter at that, and Lillith dared to wrap an arm around Keyleth’s waist as she leaned closer still.

“If you ever want to come to a ball with me, just say the word and I’ll dance with you all night,” she suddenly said, opening her eyes and lifting her head to look over at Keyleth. “I’ll buy you whatever dress you want, and we can laugh at my sisters.”

Keyleth looked somewhat confused by the sudden change in conversation, but she gave Lillith a dazzling grin.

“You don’t have to take me out to a ball if you want to dance, y’know. That does sound like a fun way to spend an evening, though.”

Lillith smiled, pleased that her outburst had gotten a positive reaction.

“Sorry, I was just… thinking about what we could do together once I go back home.”

“It’s alright. I’m used to a fast-paced conversation; gotta be able to keep up with the rest of Vox Machina.”

The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing underneath the tree and talking about whatever came to mind, without a care in the world as Lillith made small illusions to captivate Keyleth’s attention—only to be shown up when Keyleth used her druidic abilities to make bouquets of roses and transformed into all kinds of animals to amuse the both of them. Keyleth leaped upon Lillith, transforming from Minxie to her half-elf self mid-air so she could lean over the tiefling and trap her between her arms. She grinned excitedly as Lillith’s heart raced, both of them resisting the urge to close the gap between them for fear of rejection. Keyleth’s eyes dropped to Lillith’s lips and then back up to her eyes, but she just laughed it off as she rolled sideways off the other woman.

 

(Lillith spelled the flower that evening so that it wouldn’t wilt or appear damaged so that she could wear it for the rest of her visit without it getting gross.)

 

Their week together passed in a flash of laughter and stories of Keyleth’s past adventures. Lillith and Keyleth got to dance together one evening, with Lillith humming a tune for them to slow dance to in the living room with all the furniture pushed to the side so they had more space. A highlight was Lillith venturing out on her own while Keyleth attended to her duties only to be asked by a citizen of the village if she was the Headmaster’s girlfriend. Lillith had stuttered a flustered negative, to a disgruntled huff from the villager.

“The way you two’ve been acting says otherwise,” they said with an upturned nose, walking away from a very confused and somewhat hopeful Lillith.

(Lillith didn’t tell Keyleth about this, but Keyleth heard through the town’s gossiping about this and she was rather quiet that evening. Lillith figured she was just tired from working so hard.)

 

When she eventually had to leave (prompted by a message from Zahra saying that her sisters were trying to stir up trouble once again), she daringly kissed Keyleth goodbye at the entrance to the village. She had grabbed both of Keyleth’s hands, pulling her closer and kicking up a leg behind her as she tugged the taller woman into a gentle goodbye kiss. Keyleth blushed, stammering in surprise, and Lillith let go of Keyleth’s hands to tuck a section of hair behind her ear.

“I had an amazing time,” she said, as genuine as she could be. “Spending time with you was so much fun!”

“I’m glad you came to visit!” Keyleth replied, smiling fondly at Lillith. “Just… a little more warning when you plan to visit, okay? But I’d love to see you come by again soon!”

“Of course.”

Lillith placed down the bird that was her horse and let Keyleth turn it back into its original form—much to her horse’s confusion and disgruntlement, as it seemed to have finally gotten adjusted to life as a bird. Luckily, all the gear had remained intact during the visit, so she didn’t have to worry about saddling it up. She held the horse’s reins and looked back over her shoulder to wave Keyleth goodbye before she hopped up into the saddle.

“Oh! Before I forget,” Keyleth called out, clearing her throat and looking very seriously at her. “I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you go.”

Lillith paused, processing what the druid had just said. It took her a second, but then she burst into laughter to the point of tears. Keyleth laughed as well, and they had fits of giggles until they had to sit down on the ground to catch their breath.

“What—why would you say that to me?” Lillith choked out, bursting into laughter once more. “I thought it was going to be something serious!”

Keyleth started giggling again, with her hands over her mouth as she tried to breathe in and calm down.

“I thought—I thought it’d be funny to lighten the mood!” she said as she wiped away more tears. “I didn’t think you’d find it so funny!”

It took them another 10 minutes to stop laughing enough for Lillith to get in the saddle to ride off. She didn’t need to walk the way she did when she arrived, as she wore much more sensible travelling attire than her fancy dress. She headed off with a jaunty goodbye wave to the druid, smiling to herself as she heard the sound of Keyleth’s muffled laughter.

 

By the time she arrived back home and dealt with the meddling pests that were her sisters, there was a letter from Keyleth waiting for her. It was an invitation to the next Vox Machina dinner/meet up at Whitestone—Keyleth wanted her there as a plus one, with lots of hearts around the plus one. Lillith knew that her feelings were reciprocated—she clutched the letter to her chest and used a mage hand to drag a chair behind her so that she could fall into it.

She composed a swift letter that screamed _YES_ in response—she would meet with Keyleth prior and they would travel to Whitestone together! She kicked her legs up into the air excitedly after she sent off this letter, spinning about the room and grinning like a madman. It was probably for the best that the dinner was a few month’s away; there would be time for them to organise and define what they were. _Oh, how the thought almost gave her the vapours_ , she would later say to Keyleth years down the line when they would reminisce about the beginning of their relationship.

 

When Keyleth visited next, Lillith swept her up in noble affairs and shopping and café dates. Walking around the city linked arm-in-arm with Keyleth made her bubble with pride and love, and she couldn’t help how she introduced Keyleth as her girlfriend to everyone that they spoke to that day. The first time they shared a bed, they were both too giggly and nervous to do anything. Lillith tried to wear something sexy and seduce Keyleth the next night—posing on the bed and holding a rose in her hand. When Keyleth walked in, she was so surprised that she backpedalled out of the room and knocked her antlers on the doorframe with enough force to send her toppling forwards onto the ground. Lillith dropped the rose and rushed over to see if she was okay, whatever mood she’d tried to create ruined out of fear that Keyleth was hurt. The druid was perfectly fine, but she would need to do some minor repairs on her antlers so that there wouldn’t be any damage from hitting the doorframe so hard.

(But when they did finally have sex, it was slow and gentle and loving in an almost overwhelming way—then that mood was ruined when Keyleth asked if Lillith had ever done anything kinky with her tail, which shocked the tiefling so much that it made Keyleth burst into laughter until she cried from the appalled look on Lillith’s face.)

 

Though most times were pleasant, long distance tended to strain a relationship after a while. It caused tension at times to know they couldn’t visit each other at the drop of a hat—it would cause arguments, if it got that bad, about how they couldn’t drop everything to see each other or if something come up out of nowhere that meant they couldn’t visit. These arguments were brief, though, and they always managed to talk them out before it spiralled into something that broke them up. No relationship is perfect, but if their main troubles were the distance, Lillith thought they were doing pretty well.

 

The journey to Whitestone with Keyleth was exciting as much as it was nerve-wracking. It would be pleasant to meet up with Vox Machina again after all this time, but it also felt quite intimidating to come in as a sort of… interloper into their friendship circle. She could only hope that they wouldn’t grill her too much, but then again, all the stories that she had heard suggested she would receive one hell of a shovel talk.

When they arrived, it was clear that while they’d been told to expect a plus one, Vex and Percy had not known that _she_ was going to be Keyleth’s plus one. She smiled brightly and shook their hands—she had only fond memories of them—and was reintroduced to them as Keyleth’s girlfriend. Vex raised an eyebrow at that, but it was taken in with a positive response as they were ushered in and shown to their room.

She felt somewhat awkward, in a way she hadn’t expected, when she stood just outside the circle of conversation before the dinner. Everyone in Vox Machina was reconnecting and catching up, making plans to visit properly without needing such a formal call to come together, and she felt like she was on the edge of the bubble; not quite yet privy to the inner circle that was Keyleth’s friends. She wasn’t upset about it—she was _glad_ to see Keyleth so happy—but she just felt somewhat… out of place. She thought briefly about how this wouldn’t have been an issue if Keyleth had stayed with Vax if he lived, but firmly stopped herself from worrying over impossible what-if scenarios. Keyleth wanted _her_ —had chosen _her_ to come here.

Zahra appeared from seemingly nowhere and dragged her into a hug as greeting, pulling her through the invisible barrier of propriety and into that inner circle so she could join conversation. Within minutes she was conversing with the others easily, listening to their wild stories and matching them with her stories of hoity-toity nobles getting into incredibly dumb yet dire circumstances that she was called to help with. She slowly migrated through conversation until she sidled up to Keyleth, snaking an arm around her waist and listening in to whatever Keyleth was talking about with Pike. She smiled and gave a small wave to Pike as she bumped her head gently against Keyleth’s shoulder. The druid was used to Lillith’s near-incessant PDA at this point and kept talking, seemingly oblivious to how Pike’s eyes darted back and forth between her and Lillith as she put the pieces together.

 

After the dinner, Vex pulled Lillith aside and crossed her arms. The silence dragged on for a few moments as Lillith shifted nervously, anxious at the thoughts of being rejected by Vox Machina as a suitable companion to their druid.

“If you hurt her, she’ll be able to destroy you in a second,” she finally said, tipping her head to the side slightly. “I wouldn’t worry about us—worry about what she could do to you if you fucked her over.”

“Oh,” Lillith said, relieved. “No, trust me, I know that. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, unless it was one of those life or death things where you actually have to help them by hurting them, you know—”

“Well, that’s good!” Vex said, cutting her off as she began rambling. “Just… keep it in mind, I suppose.”

Vex smiled brightly and began ushering the tiefling back into the main room. Unbeknownst to Lillith (who was too busy feeling relief over being accepted via shovel talk), Vex gave a small nod to Percy—in approval, perhaps, at Lillith’s reaction.

The rest of the Whitestone visit was fairly uneventful—there was some talk of doing small jobs for the Slayer’s Take to make sure they didn’t get too rusty in their fighting skills, but there were some who were quite content to lay down their weapons and lead a more sedentary lifestyle now that they had the opportunity.

Keyleth and Lillith sat underneath the Sun Tree in Whitestone on their last day, and Keyleth bloomed a flower garland for Lillith to wear. Once she was appropriately decorated, they were joined by a large raven that flew down to land on Keyleth’s other shoulder. The druid looked between the raven and Lillith awkwardly, to the tiefling’s confusion.

“Isn’t this your familiar, darling?”

“Well…” Keyleth said, trailing off as the raven hopped indignantly down to Keyleth’s knee so it could croak at Lillith. “It’s not a familiar. As crazy as it sounds, I think… I think this raven is Vax. Or, at least, sent by him. He, uh, worked for the Raven Queen. So, a raven that acts like him isn’t… too far-fetched.”

Lillith took a considerable time to process that as she looked at the bird. A small part of her sparked in a horrid combination of anxiety and jealousy as she thought fleetingly that perhaps she was still in competition with a dead man for Keyleth’s heart—but she banished such thoughts. There was no competition; Keyleth had loved Vax, but she also loved Lillith and had chosen the alive tiefling to spend her time with. It would only be cruel of Lillith to deny her the company of the ghost of a dead friend and companion that she spent years with—and Lillith was only cruel to those she hated.

“I… see. That’s quite strange,” she finally said with a laugh. “But I suppose that Vox Machina is used to strange.”

Keyleth looked relieved, her shoulders relaxing as she held out a hand for Vax to hop onto.

“I was—well, I suppose it was unfair of me to think so, but I was worried you’d be upset that he’s around still,” she said with some reluctance, gently petting the raven with a finger.

“He’s your friend,” Lillith said easily, shrugging. “And I know that his death hurt you—all of you. So, if he’s back as a raven, then I’m happy for you, strange as it may be.”

She smiled brightly at Keyleth, and then wiggled her fingers in greeting to the bird.

“Hello again, Vax. It’s been a while since we last saw each other,” she said warmly, grinning when Vax croaked back in reply and hopped over to sit on her knee. “You’re much more pleasant company as a bird then you were when you were bleeding out because of the Briarwoods.”

That earned her an indignant peck on the leg as she laughed, amused at the way that the bird puffed up his feathers to look as big and as menacing as he could. Keyleth just smiled at them, her anxieties cooling as she saw them interact so easily.

 

 

 

 

There were still days where Keyleth felt wracked by guilt that she had allowed herself to move on so quickly from Vax; when she saw the raven that she knew was either him or a messenger of his fly down to land near her and she tried not to burst into tears.

“Are you mad?” she asked it, feeling like an idiot as she pressed her hands to her eyes in an attempt to stave off tears.

The raven just croaked loudly and hopped around a bit, but it shook its head.

“I just… I don’t want you to think I didn’t love you,” she said, lowering her hands and then holding one out so the raven would hop onto it. “Because I did, truly. I loved you, Vax. But you’re dead, and I think I love her. Is that wrong of me?”

She wasn’t sure what kind of reply she was expecting—it wasn’t as if Vax would suddenly speak from the bird’s mouth and assure her that she was fine to have moved on. It would be nice (if alarming), but instead the reality was that the raven pressed its head against her arm and let out as soft a gurgling caw that a raven could seemingly make.

Lillith emerged from their bedroom, wrapped in blankets as she approached.

“Talking to Vax again?” she asked, running the hand that didn’t clutch at the sheets around her through her messy hair. “Tell him not to spread any torrid rumours to the others about us. No, actually, I take it back—that’d be quite funny.”

Keyleth laughed wetly, wiping away any tears that managed to escape with her free hand.

“I’ll be sure to get him to gossip with Scanlan about us,” she replied with a fond smile, looking from Lillith back to the raven.

Lillith ducked in and pressed a quick kiss against Keyleth’s cheek, waved at the raven, and then wandered out of the room to go about her business. Keyleth went bright red as the raven made a gurgling laugh, tipping its head back as Keyleth tried to act like she wasn’t as flustered as she was. She eventually sighed, dropping her shoulders and placing the raven on the windowsill once more. She tugged at her hair anxiously, looking between the raven and the open door that Lillith had walked through.

“I don’t even know if this is really you, Vax. I could just be talking to a smart raven, but… even if this _is_ you, you’re not exactly the Vax I loved. It might be selfish of me, but you’re dead and I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life. I love Lillith, and she’s here now, and I don’t know if that takes away from my having loved you but… I have to move on.”

With that, she gave the raven a teary smile and gently waved it away. It flew off after a few croaking noises, looping around outside the window briefly before taking off in the direction she knew led to Whitestone. She resisted the temptation to flop dramatically onto the bed that was only a few feet away, instead raking her hands down her face and getting up to find out where Lillith had gone.

 

When Lillith proposed to Keyleth a few years down the line, it was with much careful preparation. She had planned to decorate the ballroom with Keyleth’s favourite things and a highlight reel of their memories together with her illusion magic, and then they would dance to their favourite songs and Lillith would propose to her with fake fireworks going off in the background. Yes, Lillith had planned it all perfectly—and she was meant to start working on these plans after this visit to Keyleth.

But she couldn’t stop herself one afternoon when they were out in the gardens and Keyleth had dirt smeared on her face as they sweated in the summer heat, and she couldn’t stop staring at the half-elf, transfixed by how beautiful she looked and how lucky Lillith was to have her.

“Will you marry me?” she blurted out as she held her pruning shears, short on breath because of their labouring.

“What?!” Keyleth had cried, falling back from her crouched position in shock as she tried to turn to face the tiefling.

“Sorry—gods, I had this whole plan—you just looked so pretty in the sunlight that I couldn’t stop it,” she said, words spilling out as she flushed. “Will you marry me, Keyleth?”

Keyleth dropped the weeds she’d been pulling from the gground and ran over to Lillith, picking her up and swinging her around in a very strong hug.

“Yes! Of course! Yes, a hundred times over!” she cried out, starting to tear up.

Lillith started crying out of joy, and then they were both crying and kissing in the middle of the gardens in grubby gardening attire—and Lillith had never felt so happy in her life as she did in that moment, even if she had to run inside to grab the ring that she’d brought with her just in case. It didn’t quite fit, but she cast a quick spell to make it fit just right.

“I’m so happy,” she choked out, with tears drying on her face. “I love you so much!”

Keyleth laughed a teary laugh, smearing more dirt on herself accidentally as she wiped away her tears.

“I love you too,” Keyleth replied, sniffling. “This is… Lillith, I love you so much!”

(When they were found by a concerned villager who’d heard them crying, they had to wave away concerns as Lillith proudly showed off the ring she’d chosen for Keyleth. The town’s gossip went wild, and Keyleth had to field dozens of questions the next day about it. She couldn’t bring herself to be mad, because just looking at the ring made her smile so much her cheeks hurt by the end of the day.)

When Keyleth gave Lillith a ring, it was made with the help of Percy—carefully tinkered with to be durable and still very pretty, with a pink gem on top to match Lillith’s eyes. The tiefling wore it over her gloves most days so she could still show it off, making sure it glinted in the sun _just so_ whenever she wanted to attract attention to it in a conversation so that she could boast about how incredible her fiancée was.

 

Their wedding wasn’t a quiet affair like Keyleth had imagined—it wasn’t an enormous publicity stunt of a wedding, but they were important people that moved through circles of important people that wanted invites. They held the wedding in Whitestone under the Sun Tree, with flowers in bloom all around and the weather just perfect. Vox Machina sat in the front row, with members of the Slayer’s Take and the extended friends of Vox Machina also attending. There were nobles that Lillith had invited that weren’t terrible company (and had been invited so that her sister’s—who weren’t invited—would hear how amazing and happy her life was), and there was even a seat next to Vox Machina reserved for Vax the raven.

Korrin walked Keyleth down the aisle, as her father, but Lillith was walked down the aisle by a teary-eyed Zahra. They had decided they should both walk down the aisle, one after the other—it had been impossible to convince their family that one of them would just wait at the altar without having to be walked down the aisle, so they’d taken the easy compromise.

They’d stumbled over their vows out of nervousness, starry-eyed and so in love as they stared at each other in beautiful wedding dresses. There were laughs, because they couldn’t be serious even in their vows, but when they kissed it was so sincere and passionate.

The honeymoon was at one of Taryon’s villas, who had kindly offered it to them as a wedding gift. They’d headed off on the journey to it the next morning with mild hangovers from the reception and sore feet in Keyleth’s case from her high heels. It passed in a blur of honeymoon sex, time at the beach, and time spent laughing at Lillith’s terrible sunburn from said time at the beach.

 

Keyleth still spent most of her time with the Air Ashari, training the next generation. Lillith still had her duties as a Baronessa to attend to, hearing the problems of her people and doing her best to solve them. They spent most of their time apart still, unable to be torn from their duties for too long. They still had enchanted mirrors and stones of far speech, but when they could make time to see each other in person they would curl around each other, wrapped in each other, making the most of their time together until they had to part ways once more and return to the incessant demands of their lifestyles. Many years passed like this, with their lives split between each other, until Lillith declared Zahra’s child to be her heir to the title and officially fucked off to live with Keyleth and the Air Ashari. She and Zahra had crow’s feet and smile lines when they met with each other as Lillith passed on her title and role as Baronessa, giving her cousin the gift of knowing her child would have a secure future as she selfishly gave herself a life spent fully with Keyleth.

They still visited the others, travelling across the world to meet up with Pike, Scanlan, and Grog and then to Whitestone to catch up with Vex and Percy. The others complained sometimes about how it felt as though Keyleth and Lillith were still in the honeymoon stage after all these years because of how wrapped up in each other they were, but they always replied that they were simply making up for lost time. There was no more gossip in the town about them, because it was old news to see the Headmaster making out with her wife in the gardens like they were young again and desperate to see each other.

Their lives were peaceful—sure, there were sometimes threats to deal with, but as time passed they were allowed to lower their guard and relax without fear of the world ending. Keyleth could solidly take care of any threats at the entrance to the village with her infinite beast shapes, allowing her to shift from elemental form to elemental form without worry as she solidly kicked the asses of any idiots coming their way. Lillith spent her time teaching illusion magic to other tieflings in the village, passing on her knowledge and skills so that others could benefit from all she knew. It was a fulfilling life, even if it was not as grand or extravagant as she would have imagined for herself before she’d reconnected with Keyleth.

 

 

Half-elves lived longer than tieflings, but even if they didn’t, Keyleth still remained untouched by time because of her duties as the Headmaster of the Air Ashari. Lillith’s hair had already been white, but the pink tints faded over the years. She held onto Keyleth tightly as they slow-danced in the otherwise empty ballroom in Lillith’s castle, defying her weary bones as they gently danced to a tune that they’d enchanted an orchestra of instruments to play. Lillith rested her head against Keyleth’s shoulder, closing her eyes as they swayed. She didn’t bother with illusions to hide her age anymore unless it was for an event where they had to be a show of strength and solidarity, allowing herself to age as gracefully as she could. Keyleth remained as youthful as she’d been when she’d become the leader of her people, though at night she whispered sweet nothings to Lillith and told her that her aging had changed none of her feelings.

It didn’t stop her from thinking, when Lillith travelled back to her old estate to check in on everyone there, that they didn’t have much time left together. She knew she would have to soldier on after Lillith passed, for her people needed her, but it would hurt worse than Vax. She’d spent a lifetime with Lillith—a lifetime that she didn’t want to end, but knew that it had to. It was just that… sometimes, when she saw Lillith accompanied by a raven as she slowly and delicately made her way around their garden, she wondered if she was doomed to outlive everyone that she knew. Every visit to Whitestone to see the others only reminded her of this fact—that, depending on how long she was required to be Headmaster, she may well even outlive Scanlan and Pike. A world without Vox Machina… it wasn’t a world she wished to live in, but she would carry on their legacy as much as she could.

But for now, she would treasure the time she had left with her wife.

**Author's Note:**

> ASDFGHJ i thought this was gonna be like 3k words but here we are  
> broke: lillith/percy  
> woke: lillith/keyleth
> 
> god this is so........ self-indulgent and gay thank you for watching my ted talk  
> yell @ me on tumblr at zenyattta and twitter at archistrateges/tieflingsorcery


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